Larklife issue 2 'Passion & Fashion'

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lifeI S S U E 2 – S U M M E R 2 0 1 5

Featuring Martha Swift

F A S H I O N

PA S S I O N

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@larkinsurance

I N S U R A N C E

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0 2 0 7 5 4 3 2 8 0 0

W W W. L A R K I N S U R A N C E . C O . U K

As one of the leading High and Ultra High net worth insurance brokers in the UK,

we are trusted by families, individuals and professional advisers.

For more information please contact Greg Tighe or Peter Burkert

[email protected]

[email protected]

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Exclusive interviews with Martha Swift of the Primrose Bakery; Julian Lloyd Webber, the new Principal of the Birmingham Conservatoire and British Artist Hugo Dalton open our summer edition of LARKlife.

We also publish rare images of John Paul XXIII being driven in an open top sports car just before he was elected as Pope and the artist Picasso. These pictures are part of an exceptional new digital archive created by Lark client Elizabeth Jowett who rescued the 3D images and her magnificent story is on pages 10-13.

It’s also thrilling to reveal the new chapter in our relationship with the London Sinfonietta and to introduce our new Lark music scholar Alexandra Lomeiko who played for Lark at the RCM and also at Cadogan Hall.

This publication is all about fashion and passion so we combine the subjects with a focus on the charity Smart Works, an organisation which does what it says on the tin, so expect to be inspired!

The V&A’s latest exhibition Shoes – Pleasure and Pain provides the platform to step out and consider the investment value of fashion accessories but while there’s much flamboyancy in designer fashion, we focus on the opposite desire for clean lines and modern functionality in our homes. This has brought about a rising appreciation in Scandinavian styling and we applaud the master of 20th century architecture and design Alvar Aalto, whose work looks as fresh today as it did in the 1930s.

On the social side, Lark has been hosting a number of events and joining in all manner of activities from gruelling bike rides to a royal tea party so see our new Lark Ascending diary which could fill this publication on its own.

David Foster, managing director Private Clients

Front cover:

Martha Swift,

Photo Credit: Will Tisdall

LARKlife – SUMMER 2015

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Photo Credit: Will Tisdall

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Primrose Bakery has all the makings of a Richard Curtis film set - the director of Notting Hill and Four

Weddings and a Funeral would be in his sugar-coated element people watching in the cute but contemporary shrine to cupcakes in London’s trendy Primrose Hill.

The pale yellow-painted shop stands out a mile and a huge cupcake logo emblazoned on the window with distinctive Primrose Bakery lettering ensures nobody walks past without noticing. In fact, it seems barely anyone walks by.

Yummy mummies pop in for takeaway treats, proudly putting the chic bakery bags over the handles of their prams and designer handbags. Cars pull up and young business people run in to pick up office and party orders, carefully piling boxes of colourful cakes tied with pink ribbon into the boot.

A couple of elderly ex-pats with their dogs come in to choose their afternoon tea cake and spend time chatting to the other customers and the girls behind the counter.

Everyone’s talking or shouting over the hissing coffee machine and tripping over the dogs while a young couple across the road wave to owner Martha Swift. She dashes out of the shop to say hello and meet their baby.

There are no customers sitting glued to their iPhone or working on a laptop. It is almost a revelation.

And this is exactly Martha’s dream. She said: “I always wanted this shop to be a family bakery, part of the community. I have lived in the area since I was a child and I now have a house in this road.

“Just around the corner in Regent’s Park Road there used to be a community feel to the High Street – a fish and chip shop, a launderette and a corner shop but the rents went sky high and the shops closed.

“It was awful, so I wanted to return to that time and create a place where people can pop in for a coffee on their way to work, parents can stop by going to and from school and a place to meet.

“We have been open nine years and I’ve watched children grow up and they now come in to ask for work experience and that sort of thing. I love that.

“We do not have wifi available here. I do not want people just plonked in the corner for three hours working on a computer. It is not for good business and it’s just not our style.”

It’s Tuesday morning and all eyes are on the new-season strawberry iced sponge placed temptingly in the front window.

The Gloucester Road shop looks more diner than bakery, more home than café, with icing-sugar white walls and a counter piled high with cupcakes; chocolate and banana, salted caramel, rocky road and also vanilla mini-cupcakes which are bestsellers.

There’s not a great deal of room but the seating, all feminine pastel pink and yellow chairs and a retro tables with chrome edging is cool and welcoming.

Cupcakes are freshly baked on site every day and that is the core business says Martha. “We sell up to 3,000 cupcakes a week and each one has to be perfect. We also make tiered wedding cakes and party cakes so it’s full on.”

Martha whisks

into Kensington

Handmade cupcakes are a Primrose Bakery speciality


>>

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Martha strives to deliver the very best of cakes to her discerning customers who include the Primrose Hill set

of celebrities from actor Jude Law, singer Lily Allen and comedian David Walliams.

Her second shop in Covent Garden is popular with theatre-goers and cake decorating classes are also held there. Martha said: “We also have nice regulars from the shops and theatres. After all, a tea and cake for about £5 is a lovely treat.”

Lark client Martha will be opening her third bakery in September. She said: “I wanted to do it for a long time, I looked at Wimbledon, but the situation wasn’t quite right. I haven’t ruled out that area though.

“I heard a landlord was looking to redevelop an area at the back of Holland Park, near the new Design Museum, on Kensington High Street. It was work in progress but I really liked the unit.

“It’s small but in a great location – a busy place with lots of young people and adults working and living in that area.”

Martha said she had not rushed into opening another shop as she wanted to ensure she could keep up the same standards.

She said: “I had to be sure I had a strong enough team and that I had the time to put everything into it. People come back to us because we offer a great experience and I want that consistency across every shop.

“You are only ever as good as the last thing you sell, so in my case every cupcake and cake has to be perfect.”

She added: “I have a brilliant team. You need the most amazing people and when I get them I want to keep them forever!

“With the three shops I will share everyone around; I like everyone to

be familiar with each location.

“I have just finished my fifth cookbook, Primrose Bakery Every Day, I write all of the recipes with my team so it takes a lot of time. Now I can concentrate on this project.”

Martha started the business in 2004 with Lisa Thomas, who she met while doing the nursery school run.

After a visit to New York and seeing the success of the Magnolia Bakery when TV programme Sex in the City was at the height of its popularity, the women felt there was a gap in the market for cupcakes in London.

Martha said: “For the first two years we did all the baking in our kitchens before opening the bakery in 2006. We did everything from the cooking, shopping, sales, marketing and deliveries. That was good and bad.

“I got divorced in the middle of it. My ex-husband, the political cartoonist Michael Heath, and I were together 20 years. He is incredibly talented and created the Primrose Bakery logo for me. It wasn’t really his kind of subject matter so I will always be terribly grateful – it is a lasting thing and I love it.

“My daughters were seven and 10 when I started the business. They have lived through it, every day, more than anyone else. They are so used to it.

“Daisy works here at weekends when she is back from university. She has just finished her second year. She loves the cakes, she loves the shop and it comes naturally to her, so I have been lucky. In fact, she’s getting a bit bossy now and tries to tell me how to do things!

My youngest, Millie, is just finishing her school exams and I am hoping she will work here in the summer.

“I bought out Lisa two years ago – it was all amicable, we had been through lots of changes.

“Nowadays, with a strong team I can now take holidays. I love the sun! I love being away although I am always happy coming back. We have a lot of fun here.”

“After all, making cakes as a profession is fun”.

I love the

Primrose Bakery

logo, it is a

lasting thing

tips & tricks

Martha Swift’s

Bakery

— Weigh your ingredients

carefully

— Buy the best ingredients

you can and do not

compromise on quality

— Follow the recipe - like an

exam, read the question

— Keep ingredients milk, eggs

and butter at room temperature

— Never put a sponge in the

fridge when it is made

Business

— Keep your range limited

— Get your product right

— Do not spread yourself too thin

— Be prepared to work

every hour, every day

Martha’s book Primrose Bakery Everyday focusing on the seasons and seasonal produce and will be published on October 8 (Random House EAN 9780224100762)

w w w.pr i m rose -ba ker y.co.u k

Cellist Julian Lloyd Webber, the new principal of

the Birmingham Conservatoire, talks exclusively

to LarkLife about his hopes for music education

in the UK and his exciting new role

education a chance

Give music

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Cellist Julian Lloyd Webber has long been campaigning for wider access to music education and in his

new role he hopes to ‘speak out at every opportunity’ to ensure young people have access to music and a musical instrument.

Playing a musical instrument has a positive effect across a child’s school work but politicians do not seem to understand that, says Lloyd Webber, the new Principal of the Birmingham Conservatoire.

He said: “As musicians we have somehow failed to get across the point that countless studies, not just in this country but all over the world, have proved beyond doubt that if you study music, and particularly if you play an instrument, it has a knock-on effect across the whole of a pupil’s school work.

“Children achieve better results and I find it incredibly frustrating that politicians can’t seem to grasp this. It is a fact.”

Lloyd Webber cites one London secondary school as an example. He said: “Highbury Grove was in special measures but is now rated outstanding because the head teacher decided every student should play a musical instrument.

“The school’s atmosphere has changed so instead of fighting the students are sitting down together and making music. That is just one example but it could happen across the country.

“The proposed new English Baccalaureate (Ebacc) could mean that no art subjects will be included in the curriculum. We fought the government and won last time round in 2012-13 and now we have to start all over again. Who knows what is going to happen?

“We need to speak out at every opportunity because it is completely wrong that music should become something only for rich families and their children. We are missing a lot of natural talent.”

Lloyd Webber feels the UK has excelled in what it achieves artistically, ‘despite not much backing’.

He said: “Reduce music education funding further and we are going to miss out. We have benefited from outstanding people in the arts and even with the little bit of subsidy we get, we really do punch above our weight.

“If music goes out of our schools it will be a bad situation. There is no classical music on TV. Our children do not see it and are not exposed to it, so how can they be interested?”

He said: “I was surrounded by music at home but at my final school the music teacher doubled as the gym teacher. I don’t think they would have sent me towards music.”

The doyen of British cellists has toured the world and is impressed by the interest and attitude to classical music in the Far East. He said: “In my hotel room in South Korea I turned on the TV in the mid-afternoon and the main channel was showing a long classical concert. That’s normal over there but a rarity here.

“You only have to look at the UK colleges to see that so many students are coming from the Far East and overseas, learning Western classical music and beating us at our own game.

“Some 40 million people study the piano in China; the young people have icons to follow but our TV doesn’t showcase our young talent. The attitude here is: ‘Your child studies music? How extraordinary’.”

He added: “There are whole traditions in this country that we are in danger of losing. Do we see brass bands from the North on TV? Do we see them on Coronation Street. Why not?”

Lack of financial incentive for musicians to pursue a career is another of Lloyd Webber’s concerns. “Musicians seem to be expected to do it for love but they have to pay bills like everyone else. I know brilliant musicians who have to do something different because they can’t make the money.”

Lloyd Webber spoke to Lark private client director Julie Webb after a public Masterclass at the Royal College of Music and said he was ‘massively excited’ by his move to Birmingham and the potential it offers to raise the profile of young musicians.

He explained: “I am charged with taking the Conservatoire into its new £46 million building in 2017. It’s a fantastic opportunity and being part of Birmingham City University means we also have access to the other faculties including media, design and the drama school where the facilities are astonishing.

“The possibilities that lie ahead are limitless.”


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RoMo Publicity: Selling cards

and viewers in Lourdes

£3D VisionDaughter's devotion to duty

saves historic 3D Collection

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Clearing an elderly parent’s home is never an enviable task but Elizabeth Jowett had the added responsibility

of saving, or possibly losing, an important collection of colour transparency images that are an essential part of the development of 3D photography.

Elizabeth’s grandfather Gustave Mouzillat, an engineer, and her father Robert, an artist and publisher, had accumulated tens of thousands of high quality 3D images, each the size of a fingernail and produced in pairs – one for the right eye and one for the left.

It took six months to pack up everything in her father’s Paris flat and Elizabeth arranged for the images to be shipped to her home in Jersey while she chose to sell the cameras and photographic equipment to specialist collectors.

Elizabeth, 73, said: “My father was a captivating and charming eccentric. Although he made no formal catalogue of the images he did keep them in specialist archive boxes. I knew I had to do something with them. I felt it was my duty.”

Supported by her husband, Elizabeth has spent the last eight years researching and cataloguing the images to create a complete archive of The RoMo Image Collection.

It contains subjects from female nudes, Japanese musical instruments and puppet theatre to national costumes and views of European cities.

Notably the collection includes unpublished images of Pablo Picasso in his home and studio in Cannes and the Lourdes visit of Cardinal Angelo Roncalli who, shortly after, became Pope John Paul XXIII.It also includes the first State visit of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince

Philip to Paris in the early 1950s.

Elizabeth said: “My father led an extraordinary life; he was an accomplished painter and publisher with many influential friends and associates.

“He and my mother, Josette, lived in Vichy, where they were active in the French Resistance movement and were captured by the Gestapo in 1942. My mother, who was heavily pregnant with me, was transferred temporarily to a hospital to give birth while my father remained imprisoned in solitary confinement.

“After the war, we moved into an apartment in Paris. My father held a senior position in the French Ministry of Internal Affairs and in 1945 he was a member of General De Gaulle’s delegation, at the conference held in San Francisco, to establish the League of Nations.

“In 1947 he became a director of Pan Books where he developed a new printing technique.”

Elizabeth added: “My father and grandfather went on to develop a two-lens camera to produce precision three-dimensional photographic images, similar to those recorded by the human eye.

“It captured double images that could be reproduced for viewing, both as stills or movies and the camera, which has never been overtaken by modern technology. The images were seen through a viewer also designed by my grandfather.

“The RoMo viewer became very popular – it used rectangular cards with 12 images on each card. The film was specially made by Kodak who wanted to buy the invention but my father refused.”


Elizabeth JowettCardinal Angelo Roncalli being driven to the

underground Basilica at Lourdes, just months before

he was elected as Pope John XXIII in October 1958 >>

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3D of the Moulin Rouge, Paris

Elizabeth said: “The camera and viewer were a success at the 1948 Exposition Universelle in Brussels and earned the Medaille de Bronze. My father and grandfather passed up many commercial opportunities because they wanted to continue the development of the camera technology on their own.

“There was considerable interest from the French government and they worked with the Ministry of Health to make images of open heart surgery and explore the possibilities of remote location surgery. They were also commissioned by the Ministry of Sport to make images of athletes to analyse their performance. The collection includes examples of this work.”

In 1953, Robert received a pass from the Lord Chamberlain’s office to enable him to photograph the Queen’s coronation. His stereoscopic photographs, taken outside Buckingham Palace, are the only ones of their type in existence.

By 1957, the camera had caught the imagination of Pablo Picasso and the artist invited Robert to spend Easter of that year at his home and studio, La Californie, in Cannes. Picasso wanted to know how his art work would look as a 3D image. The meeting produced 350 photographs to record the artist’s work and life at the height of his career.

The images show Picasso with his son, Paolo, and Jacqueline Rocque who Picasso married in 1961. They also feature, among others, John Richardson, his official biographer, Spanish surrealist Jaime Sabartés and Jean Cocteau, the French writer and film producer who were at the Easter weekend party.

“These were the circles my father moved in but his main interest remained the development of the cameras,” said Elizabeth. “I worked with him for about 30 years, commuting to Paris from London where my husband worked in the City.

“Even in his 70s my father commuted from Paris to Rennes, to the France Telecom Research Centre where he worked with a team developing 3D television.”

“He continued to live in the Paris apartment, surrounded by his art work, cameras and boxes of images until he was 93. He spent his last years in a care home and died there aged 97.”

Elizabeth said the archive ‘has been a labour of love’. She said: “The job is not yet finished but I was fortunate to be introduced to Catherine Kirby, [www.catherinethearchivist.com] a professional archivist, who is still working on the project on a part-time basis. She has been truly brilliant!

“While we were in the early stages of archiving we were advised to digitise the images. I investigated the opportunities, but by good fortune, through friends who are professors, it was suggested that I should talk to the head of the Technology Department at the University of Bristol. The university borrowed some images to do research and advised me how to proceed and the equipment to buy.”

Another avid 3D fan is Queen guitarist Brian May. The rock star has had a lifelong interest in collecting stereophotography and was he awarded The Royal Photographic Society’s Saxby Medal in 2012 for achievement in the field of 3D imaging.

Brian is chairman of the London Stereoscopic Company and in 2014, when Elizabeth contributed images for an exhibition, Picasso in 3D, at the Holburne Museum in Bath, he volunteered to work on the 3D imagery published in the exhibition’s catalogue.

Elizabeth said: “Brian thought the RoMo Image Collection was ‘an absolutely fabulous project’ and I was thrilled to receive his support. It made it all worthwhile. I now have to find someone who will take all this off my hands and move it forward.”

Like her grandfather and father, Elizabeth Jowett has demonstrated that she is also a pioneer.

In 1957, Robert Mouzillat took 350 images images of Pablo Picasso. The artist was at the height of his fame and the images on the RoMo website provide a rare and fascinating record of Picasso, his family and friends. He is pictured right, wearing a stetson given to him by actor Gary Cooper from the 1945 film Saratoga Trunk.

Image Right © Succession Picasso/DACS, London 2015.

View the RoMo Image Collection at

www.romoimages.com

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Children playing on the beach at La Baule, Brittany

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The Early Birds

The London Sinfonietta

Photo credit: Kevin Leighton

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London Sinfonietta is taking Lark Insurance on a musical journey as it tunes up for a spectacular 50th

anniversary celebration.

A 21st century version of Vaughan Williams’ Lark Ascending has been commissioned to mark Lark Insurance’s support for the contemporary chamber orchestra’s World Premiere Wednesdays - bi-monthly breakfast meetings where a new piece of classical music is played to an early bird audience.

Andrew Burke, London Sinfonietta’s CEO, suggested an original work should be dedicated to Lark. He said: “The score was originally written for violin and orchestra but the idea that we might have a piece written for violin, with a contemporary resonance and played for people who are up with the Lark, just makes you smile!

“It will be loosely based on the inspiration of Lark Ascending, certainly not a carbon copy, and I can’t think of a better way to thank Lark for its support.

“Lark is insuring the future of music, and its team led by David Foster is interested in the journey and wants a unique experience; reaching lots of people and influencing those lives. It’s the kind of thing money can’t buy.

“This meaningful support helps London Sinfonietta sustain its values; we are all about new music, what is being written today. This year we have more than 20 composers writing solo, ensemble and cross-art-form commissions.

“We connect very well with Lark and working together creates a greater circle of people who believe in us.

“Guests arrive early for coffee and croissants at the breakfast-time World Premiere Wednesdays at Kings Place, our headquarters in King’s Cross, and have the privilege to listen to a new piece of classical music.

“With new music people are sometimes a bit tentative so to offer them a short piece is pretty painless and a fairly low-commitment contract - everyone can start their day in a rather special way but be gone by around 9.30am.”

Andrew added: “London Sinfonietta was formed on Wednesday, January 24, 1968. It seems some way off to our half century but the bi-monthly World Premiere Wednesdays are part of our countdown and we are already planning celebration events because we will be looking as much to our future as we will the past.

“An ex-chairman of the orchestra once said ‘we don’t live in a museum’ and I feel that sums up what life is about; we do listen to music that is 200 years old but we have permission to think about what’s new and now.

“Likewise, Lark’s insurance business is about preserving musical instruments but also sustaining something for the future. Certainly Lark is helping to make sure this organisation’s future is insured.

“Lark does remarkable work to enable people to play fine instruments, making sure they are looked after and stay useable, as well as supporting artists to enable them to shine.”

David Foster, Managing Director Lark private clients, said: “We are really excited about the new commission, especially as we at Lark will also be marking a milestone in 2018 – it will be our 70th anniversary as a broker.

“Celebrating this landmark year, with a new piece of music that has been composed for us, will be exciting for the business. Our link with the London Sinfonietta is already proving to be very positive.”

London Sinfonietta’s mission is to place the best contemporary classical music at the heart of today’s culture, engaging and challenging the public through inspiring performances of the highest standard and taking risks to develop new work and talent.

Resident at Southbank Centre with a busy touring schedule worldwide, its core is 18 Principal Players, representing some of the best solo and ensemble musicians in the world. The group also works with talented emerging players to ensure the unique expertise of its Principals is passed on.


Andrew Burke, London Sinfonietta's CEO

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Music is in the lifeblood of our new Royal College of Music (RCM) Scholar, Alexandra Lomeiko.

Alexandra, 23, was born in Novosibirsk, Russia, but her musical family was always travelling. When she was five, they eventually settled in New Zealand and her mother began to teach Alexandra how to play the violin.

At 12, she started to play a full-size instrument, a Frederic Chaudiere violin, made in 1999. Alexandra says she became very attached to it.

She said: “I was very shy and it was due to this that I became so close to my violin. It never let me down and it was always there for me.”

Alexandra moved to London to study at the Purcell School of Music when she was 15 and went on to take her BMus degree at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 2010 before starting her Masters in Performance at the RCM in 2014.

She said: “Earlier this year the RCM loaned me a violin made by Carlo Tononi of Cremona, it was made in 1687. Although I’ve only had it for a few months, I’ve begun to fall deeply in love with it.

“The aged wood and the beautiful craftsmanship has created a violin which is phenomenally responsive and produces the most irresistible sound.

“It is a special relationship that a violinist has with a violin, because there is only so much that a violinist can control. The real magic happens through the body of the finely crafted instrument, a magic to which we violinists owe our lives!

“The music and the emotions musicians put into their instrument is parallel to the same emotions we put into our relationships with people, so if my violin was lost I would find that hard to deal with.”

Alexandra says being at the RCM is ‘now really beginning to feel like home’. She said: “It has a family-like atmosphere and the historic building is great at motivating practice and inspiring ideas.

“The MPerf programme has a great balance and variety of modules to prepare me for

my professional career and the performance opportunities the RCM provides are helping me get the experience I need before emerging into the ‘real’ world.”

Alexandra performs chamber music and solo recitals and also works with many London orchestras through student placement schemes.

In 2013, she and her friend, Luba Tunnicliffe, formed an unconducted chamber orchestra, the Silk Street Sinfonia,

which Alexandra leads from the violin.

Alexandra said: “I want to push Silk Street Sinfonia to a more professional level, performing in more prestigious venues with amazing soloists such as violinists Leonidas Kavakos, Maxim Vengerov and Itzhak Perlman.

“My dream is to play alongside the pianist Emmanuel Ax and violinists Janine Jansen and Laurence Power.”

Alexandra says she has learned how much more enjoyable a concert becomes when the performer talks to the audience during the concert.

She said: “I loved the performance for Lark Insurance at the RCM because it was a light-hearted audience who were appreciative and enthusiastic.

As a Lark scholar I feel unbelievably lucky to be sponsored by a company that is doing such great things for musicians and is so supportive and interested in my studies.”

Alexandra added: “The past three years have been difficult for my family. Since the earthquake in Christchurch, in February 2011, my parents have only been able to do limited work and, were it not for Lark’s generosity, I probably would not have been able to continue my studies here.”

For further information about supporting a scholarship at the RCM please contact Fiona Rose at [email protected]

£I feel unbelievably lucky to be sponsored by a company that

is doing such great things for musicians...

Silk Street Sinfonia


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The start of a beautiful relationshipLark Music Scholar

Alexandra Lomeiko

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Sweden Gordon chooses an

outfit for her job Interview

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Value and worth are important words in my work but since volunteering at Smart Works they hold a more poignant meaning, writes Lisa Smith, deputy managing director, Private Client Division

Can you imagine what it would be like to have been out of work for years with no money to buy an appropriate outfit for a

job interview?

Smart Works helps long-term unemployed women get back to work in a unique way – the charity lifts their confidence by decking them out in a fabulous new designer outfit, assists them with interview techniques and gives them the confidence to impress a potential employer.

Top fashion houses donate clothes to the charity so a Smart Works’ volunteer stylist can give the full personal shopper treatment to interviewees. Once the women are confident in their ‘new look’ they have time to prepare for a face-to-face interview.

Smart Works makes their clients feel really special and I have watched women’s self-esteem grow within the two hours they spend at the charity’s Islington office.

My team take it in turns to spend one afternoon a month at Smart Works and our role is to talk to women who are preparing for interview. We ask them about the job role and tend to talk about how to approach the interview and how to talk about themselves but often we find ourselves spending lots of time convincing them they are worthy of a new job.

Many have little confidence or work experience and often say they are not sure what value they can bring to a role.

Almost half of the women have applied for more than 50 jobs without success. The women are usually more than capable but lack self-worth after constant rejection and years of financial struggles – be it as a single-parent, through health problems or perhaps caring for an elderly parent.

Smart Works has 80 volunteers led by chief executive Kate Stephens who is passionate about the charity’s work. In turn, Kate has great backing from Smart Works’ patrons - fashion designer Betty Jackson, fashion retailer Whistles chief executive Jane Shepherdson and comedian Jennifer Saunders. They are wonderful ambassadors for this unique charity

which gets no public funding.

It is not just high-profile women or designer companies that support Smart Works.

Many clothes come through donations from professional women. When a message is sent out through an office or large organisation, groups of women purge their wardrobe and pass on everything from new or barely worn shoes to work suits, handbags and dress jewellery.

It is great to see rails and rails of fabulous clothes at Smart Works and even more fantastic to see them worn by women who could never otherwise dream of a new outfit, let alone getting a foot on the job ladder.

Smart Works’ chief executive Kate Stephens says the London charity is ‘fashion’s warm heart’ and its success story is now expanding to other cities across the UK.

Since 2000, Smart Works has reached up to 1,500 unemployed women every year and this model is now being extended to a national network with two new offices opening in Edinburgh and Manchester.

Kate said: “London will be the model for best practice and share the learning but the each city will have its own board.


Kate Stephens, Smart Works' chief executive

>>

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“We make our work here look deceptively simple but it really touches those women that someone takes an interest in them; 43% have been unemployed for more than two years before we meet them. Many are ‘job ready’ but purely lack confidence.”

Kate said: “It can be very emotional for women coming to Smart Works. People are nervous when they arrive, it is deeply personal and it takes a special person to assist with the dressing. It really touches those women – when I hear laughter I know the barriers are coming down!”

Smart Works’ service has gradually evolved. Originally, the charity only offered the ‘dressing’ service but Kate says she and her board questioned why only a third of the women were getting a job.

She said: “About five years ago we added the one-to-one training. Lark was one of our founder corporate partners, offering a fantastic insight to help our clients learn to sell themselves and how to talk about themselves.

“Our success rate is now 59% - and

I am hoping that figure will continue

to rise.”

“Once our clients have the confidence that someone believes in them it underpins the whole process, not just the clothes but the feeling of being worthy; worthy of the job they are going for comes from personal attention.

I felt inspired to

aim higher£

Sweden Gordon, 20, secured a job as a technology apprentice at Accenture after her visit to Smart Works.

Sweden said: “Smart Works changed me as it made me think more about making a good first impression.”

“The interview session was really helpful - I learned about body language, what message it shows and to think about what the employers are looking for.”

“The clothes were amazing and the stylists really knew their stuff. It opened my eyes about my image. I now dress differently and

know how to put looks together.”

“I needed the help to aim higher; it was lovely to be around so many strong women and it was

a very safe environment, I felt inspired.”

Want to get involved? Visit www.smartworks.org.uk

Preparation for a job interview

Clothes and accessories at Smart Works' headquarters

21

>>


FASH

ION S

PECIAL

Is your money

in shoes or designer

handbags? One shoe can change your life according to

Cinderella but putting your money into the right

handbag can also bring fairy tale riches to

outstrip stocks and shares, writes Julie Webb

Parakeet Shoes by Caroline Groves

Picture: Dan Lowe

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W hat is it about shoes and handbags that takes hold of the human mind?

Why do they have the power to become such extreme objects of desire?

The former First Lady of the Philippines, Imelda Marcos’ collection of shoes was so vast it became a symbol of excess in a country where one quarter of the population is on the poverty line. A pair of Marcos’ dainty black leather and diamond encrusted shoes feature in the V&A’s Shoes – Pleasure and Pain exhibition and serve as a poignant reminder of the powerful place shoes have in our psyche.

Well-heeled fashionistas have been flocking to the show because shoes can make us feel good – they are transformative – we can be taller, we can pose because our body shape looks better and even when we take them off we feel immense pleasure! I’m more of a flats girl now, as my mum wore stilettos and ended up with bunions and she warned me off wearing ‘those types of shoes!’

Some 200 pairs are on display which proves their allure. I can not imagine an exhibition focusing on just shirts or shorts!

There is one lone crystal slipper on a red velvet cushion to remind visitors of the ultimate shoe-love story, Cinderella, and further showstoppers include Vivienne Westwood’s 21cm blue mock croc platforms, from which Naomi Campbell fell on the Paris catwalk, and the ultimate in luxury, a champagne pink beaded silk and leather pair of 1950s Roger Vivier shoes for Christian Dior, donated by Gloria Loel Guinness.

Exhibition curator Helen Persson says shoes are one of the most telling aspects of dress. She said: “As beautiful, sculptural objects they are portray gender, status, identity, taste and even sexual preference. Our choice in shoes can help project an image of who we want to be.”

Most of the shoes on display are one-off and highly valuable pieces but when it comes to investments, rare 18th century shoes and luxury silver footwear given to Indian brides can fetch jaw-dropping prices from collectors. So, too, can shoes formerly owned by the likes of Marilyn Monroe which also feature in the exhibition.

V & A’s research claims that British women spent up to £3.5 Billion on shoes in 2013. In 2010 Selfridges had 32,000 sq ft of shoe retailing and have more than 116,000 pairs in stock at any one time. Harrods has ‘Shoe Heaven’ which has 42,000 sq ft.

Banking on a Birkin?

Passion for fashion means a growing number of investors are now putting their money into handbags, pardon the pun.

According to American poet Ellen Racklin, ‘a woman in her lifetime will spend far more hours hugging her handbag than her husband’ – no comment!

A gold and diamond piece once owned by Elizabeth Taylor sold at auction for £144,000 in 2011 but since then the Hermès Birkin bag has consistently been the ‘hot lot’ at auction, a symbol of wealth and much-prized by the likes of Victoria Beckham, Lady Gaga and Tamara Ecclestone.

Shoes – Pleasure and Pain

exhibition runs to January 31, 2016.

Admission £12, advance booking

recommended at: www.vam.ac.uk

Roger Vivier for Christian Dior. Evening shoe, beaded

silk and leather, France 1958-60

Photo credit: Victoria and Albert Museum London

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Research carefully and Herm£s bags can be bought at

auction without running into six figures. This 2007

bag sold in June for £3,600 at Kerry Taylor Auctions,

London


Jellyfish ensemble and Armadillo shoes Platos Atlantis

SS 2010. Model Polina Kasina. Lauren Greenfield

Institute

However, it will be interesting to see how the value of Hermès crocodile skin bags fair now former model and singer Jane Birkin has asked the French manufacturer to remove her name from the accessory after learning of the “cruel” methods of crocodile farming from animal rights group Peta (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals).

Birkin said in a statement: “Having been alerted to the cruel practices reserved for crocodiles during their slaughter to make Hermès handbags carrying my name... I have asked Hermès to rename the Birkin Croco until better practices in line with international norms can be put in place.”

Hermès told the Daily Mail Online that ‘an investigation is under way at the Texas farm which was implicated and any breach of rules will be rectified and sanctioned. Hermès specifies that this farm does not belong to them and that the crocodile skins supplied are not used for the fabrication of Birkin bags.”

In June, a Hermès fuchsia 18ct white gold and diamond-encrusted croc skin 2014 Birkin 35 bag set a new record as the most expensive handbag sold at auction. The £146,000 lot went to an anonymous phone bidder at a Christie’s auction in Hong Kong.

Birkin has been receiving around £30,000 in royalties from Hermès, which she donates to charity, and over the last decade the value of the bags has risen eight per cent a year. That’s as good a return on the UK Stock Market.

The Birkin bag came about in 1981 when the Hermès chief executive Jean Louis Dumas sketched it on an Air France sickbag while Birkin, in the next seat, voiced that she needed a bag with pockets.

With the handbags going L for Leather it is worth looking in the back of your dressing room for what’s in those dust covers.

Kerry Taylor, of Kerry Taylor Auctions, in Bermondsey, south-east London, specialises in vintage clothing and accessories.

Kerry said: “Chanel bags are very collectable but the Birkin bag is most desirable, particularly with the original invoice.

“Interest is fast-growing and prices are rising so anyone with collections, particularly from the 1920s-1960s, should get them valued.”

If you can not get enough of handbags and their history, the Tassenmuseum of bags and purses in Amsterdam has more than 5,000 items to view and in Seoul, South Korea, check out the Simone handbag museum which opened in 2012. You can’t miss it, the building is in the shape of the top handle of a shopper!

• 2015 auctions at Christie’s: Handbags and Accessories - Paris, October 7; Hong Kong, December 2; New York, December 11

• 2015 Kerry Taylor auctions: Antique and Vintage Fashion and Textiles October 13; Passion and Fashion December 8

Research carefully and Hermès bags can be bought

at auction without running into six figures. This 2007

bag sold in June for £3,600 at Kerry Taylor Auctions,

London

Is your fashion collection insured to

the correct value? Contact private

client director Julie Webb email

[email protected]

Jellyfish ensemble and Armadillo shoes Platos Atlantis

SS 2010. Model Polina Kasina. Lauren Greenfield

Institute

Alvar Aalto was the most important Finnish architect of the

20th century. With only one day to spend in design central

Helsinki, Lesley Bellew made her way to Aalto's former studio

and home in the city's suburbs

20th Century Joy

Iconic: The Savoy vase

Photo Credit: The Savoy Foundation

£How much do you

know about Finland?£

Students with an unnerving enthusiasm for their design-conscious Scandinavian homeland quizzed commuters at Victoria

Station in London.

Most people pushed past but I was waiting for a friend so in a weak moment offered ‘architect Alvar Aalto?’ At once I was bombarded with pictures of his modernist masterpieces – buildings, furniture and glasswork.

Did I know Finland was a World Design capital?

Did I know about the Museum of Finnish Architecture and Design Museum in Helsinki?

I had to give a ‘no’.

Unperturbed, the evangelical students suggested: “Why not visit the Aalto House and his nearby studio? They’re close to the capital’s centre and you can see his Finlandia Hall and the museums…”

The quirky art students had put Helsinki on my radar so when business took me to the city which has design in its DNA there was only one man on my mind - the late, great Alvar Aalto.

A tram from Helsinki station to the lakeside suburb of Munkkiniemi took little more than 30 minutes. It stopped at Tiilimäki, a peaceful avenue of bespoke, mainly contemporary homes which was worth the journey alone.

Red squirrels scampered up giant pines and a long white brick wall heralded the first clue to Studio Aalto (1954-1956). Aalto built the

streamlined property to create space to deal with large commissions and visitors can see just how the architect’s workplace was used.

The desks and Anglepoise lamps, shelves of plans and plywood scale models remain in place, as if Aalto had just walked out.

The studio’s clean lines wrap round the tiered garden to create an amphitheatre where movie-mad Aalto would project films against a huge white wall. Its neat dual functionality was to enable his team to sit on the slate steps and listen to lectures or watch slideshows.

Inside, light pours into the main studio which contains Aalto’s signature furniture, including the bent birch lacquered Paimio chair and three-legged laminated birch Stacking Stool 60, alongside remarkable scale models including the Aalto Theatre in Essen, Germany.

In the top corner of the high-ceilinged studio hang a dozen lights on rods which allowed Aalto to test their effectiveness at differing heights. Attention to detail is a by-word for Aalto and testament to his insistence on functionality.

Even the staff dining room contains iconic Aalto furniture, practical black composite table tops edged with lacquered pine and discreet down-lighters. Sixty years on and everything still has a striking form, intrinsic strength and requires little maintenance.

Ten minutes’ walk from the studio is Aalto’s former home, although visitors should add an extra 15 minutes for dawdling and gawping at other properties along the way.

Aalto and his first wife Aino lived at The Aalto House in Riihitie 20 from 1936. From the outside, the flat-roofed house looks severe but is softened by virginia creeper which climbs white wooden poles close to the wall giving the property a new look every season; changing from white-to-green-to-red before being cut back for the next year.

While Aalto’s functionalist contemporaries insisted a home should be a machine for living in, Aalto remained true to traditional Finnish design and was inspired by nature. He said: “The best standardisation committee in the world is nature herself, but in nature standardisation occurs mainly in connection with the smallest possible units: cells.

“The result is millions of flexible combinations in which one never encounters the stereotyped.”

The Aalto House is a total work of art – not just the building but the couple gave special treatment to the interior surfaces, furniture design, lamps, furnishings and glassware

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20th century Finnish architect Alvar Aalto


>>

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ALVAR AALTO MADE THE IMPOSSIBLE POSSIBLE

Alvar Aalto was the designer who made the impossible possible, according to John Black, director of Sworders Auctions.

The Essex auction house sold one of Aalto’s iconic Paimio chairs for £7,200 last year although they are known to make more (a US auction house recently sold an early example for £14,500).

John said: “Aalto was the designer who refreshed furniture and his designs still work in a modern space – they are breath-taking.

“There is a growing interest in modern post-war design and Scandinavian pieces because younger buyers are not so interested in Edwardian or Victorian styles - they are looking for affordable modern furniture. We also have buyers in their later years who saw the designs

post-war and now want to own a piece.

“Utilitarian items like chests, desks and side tables sell really well from £300-400 to £1,500.

“Top range Scandinavian designers such as Aalto, Arne Jacobsen, Hans Wegner, Bodil Kjaer and Finn Juhl are all in vogue.

“We recently sold a desk by Bodil Kjaer for £8,400. It was made in 1959 for E Pedersen & Son and in my view is one of the most desirable pieces of mid-20th century furniture. We also saw a Bwana chair by Finn Juhl sell for £2,200.

“The great thing is that much of this kind of furniture is still affordable and with a new generation of buyers coming through we get 700-800 people registering for our modern furniture sales.

“My advice is always buy what you like and enjoy it - go that extra mile as good quality will never depreciate.”

John added: “We have a fortnightly online sale so gone are the days when we could gauge interest by who was in the auction house.

“Buyers can watch the auction live online and bid from the comfort of their home or office.”

Sworders’ next post-war furniture sale is on October 13. Visit sworders.co.uk to register interest.

If you think the value of your mid-20th century furniture needs insurance revaluation contact private client director Julie Webb [email protected]

including the curvy Savoy vase. The house displays a softer, romantic functionalism which created a home-cum-office-cum-showcase for clients.

The living space is defiantly stylish and the built-in cupboards, linoleum flooring, pale pine and birch-sourced plywood and moulding have proved strong and practical. Light again pours in the generous windows and the low windowsills ensure a garden view when sitting in the sofas.

For the one-day visitor there was only time for passing Aalto’s masterpiece Finlandia Hall (1962-71), fronting Töölö Bay in the centre of

the city. Even from a glance it was clear this building could have no equal in Helsinki – or perhaps the whole of Europe.

Aalto’s ahead-of-his-time attention to detail echoed his theory that “we should work for simple, good, undecorated things. But things which are in harmony with the human being …”

There is no question that he succeeded.

Visit www.alvaraaltosymposium.fi

The Paimio chair at the Alvar Aalto studio

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The curving studio with steps used

for seating in the summer

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Hugo Dalton drawing during the

RCM's Debussy Explosion

Lark Insurance’s evening concert at the Royal College of Music coincided with the conservatoire’s unveiling of a £25 million plan to redevelop its iconic London site.

There was a real buzz around the college as the details of new performance spaces, practice rooms, a restaurant and museum were revealed.

It will all centre around an open-air quadrangle to the side of architect Sir Arthur Blomfield’s Flemish Mannerist building that was opened by the Prince of Wales in 1894.

The 21st century development by architect John Simpson will repeat royal history with the present Prince of Wales agreeing to be patron of the fundraising campaign.

On this landmark day Lark guests were treated to a programme of music offering a unique insight into the 21st century musical talent that is being nurtured at the RCM.

Lark scholar, violinist Joe Devalle, accompanied by Kumi Matsuo on piano, played three pieces and talked through his choices with the audience; from Faure’s Sonata no. 1 in A major, II movement; Szymanowski’s Mythes no. 1: La Fontaine d’Arethusa and Sarasate, introduction and Tarantella.

There was standing room only as guests from co-hosts London Business Angels and Lark filled the Parry Rooms to also enjoy an innovative, contemporary performance by percussionist Louise Goodwin, a fascinating display of talent by Stefan Beckett and Will Riby on Marimbas, plus Yaroslava Trofymchuk on cello.

David Foster, Lark private clients managing director, said it was a privilege to be in such a fine musical establishment, overlooking the Royal Albert Hall, and thanked RCM scholarships manager Fiona Rose for the opportunity to host the event.

Fiona told guests she was delighted Lark Insurance was keen to be involved and ‘in tune with the RCM’s ethos of offering access to music and excellence for all’.

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Celebrated British artist Hugo Dalton generously designed the RCM’s Raise the Roof! programme, just one of several

collaborations with the College which is blossoming into an exciting relationship.

Music-loving Hugo is best known for his contemporary wall painting and unique light drawing but now he is pushing the barriers with live music drawing.

Hugo, 37, said: “I want to open up classical music to allow another layer of interest and interpretation for a new audience through live art. I want them to be more involved.”

In the experimental concert Debussy Explosion, Hugo joined RCM’s student pianist Imma Setiadi, and remixed her rendition of Debussy Preludes with live drawings on a large screen.

While Imma played the dramatic score, Hugo stood opposite creating an immediate visual which was projected on to the screen as he responded to the music.

Hugo said: “The key point was to present classical recitals in a new light, to experiment and not make it quite such a stuffy affair.

“The human mark, when displayed with classical music, speaks the same language.”

RCM artistic director Stephen Johns was delighted by the collaboration and he feels that Hugo’s work mirrors the RCM’s own art form.

He said: “The performance of music exists in real time and Hugo has responded to this impetus to create new and exciting works - this interaction of sound, structure and image creates a feast for the senses.

“Hugo carries this free-drawing response to evolve shapes and patterns that he also uses for permanent images, visible notably in the fresh and uplifting decoration of the RCM’s Museum of Music.”

Hugo’s relationship with the RCM began when director Colin Lawson admired his swirling acrylic and gold-leaf work on the walls of the Royal Albert Hall.

This site-specific piece was inspired by a coiled French hunting horn, echoing the building’s iconic circular shape.

Colin felt Hugo’s unique work, with a musical twist, would sit well at the RCM and he introduced him to the RCM Museum of Music’s curator Gabriele Rossi Rognoni, who recently joined the college from the Galleria dell’Accademia and University of Florence.

Gabriele leapt at the chance to work with Hugo.

He said: “We talked to Hugo about a temporary project in the museum. It is a wonderfully vibrant and active place because as well as hosting collections, there are a huge number of concerts and events.

“But it was, to be honest, an uninspiring setting, with dull blue walls.

“We felt Hugo’s artwork could give visitors to the museum a strong visual feeling that the architecture and museum exhibits have been animated though the wall painting.”

“The walls were painted white during the Easter holidays and Hugo transformed the north and west walls with a design inspired by listening to performances by college students, including Dario Castello’s Sonata Secunda for recorder and harpsichord.

Hugo said: “I wanted to convey the momentary and intangible experience of walking through the RCM. The artwork at the museum represents the quest for a perfect note; some marks on the wall are refined and complete while others are in the process of emerging ”The artwork ‘reflects what the museum wants to be’.

The RCM Museum of Music is open from Tuesday to Friday 11.30am to 4.30pm. Every Friday a concert or recital is held in the museum, details can be found at: www.rcm.ac.uk

About Hugo

When Hugo Dalton left Goldsmiths, University of London, with first-class honours he was ‘discovered’ by Kay Saatchi who bought one of his works at his graduation show. It kick-started his career and he has exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum, The Courtauld Institute, Carrousel du Louvre, in Paris, and the Today Museum, Beijing.

Hugo 37, is based in south-east London, and travels all over the world creating private commissions as well as work for commercial clients including Tiffany & Co, in the Champs-Elysees in Paris, Barneys in New York and Liberty of London. Kay Saatchi continues to collect his work as do Anthony de Rothschild, Sam Parker Bowles and David Roberts.

To recharge his creatives batteries Hugo gets away from it all in the lake district. He said: “I have a cottage with no electricity and i also love to go fly fishing. I find that being by a river all day is the most relaxing feeling and this sense of calm and serenity imbues my work.”


Fashion fades, style is eternal

– Yves St Laurent

By Julie Webb, risk and client Director

L A R K A S C E N D I N G

As our Fashion and Passion-themed LARKlife publication demonstrates we’ve been stepping out in style this

quarter.

In March, Lark hosted a ladies’ event at the Design Museum, in London, coinciding with the Women Fashion Power exhibition. I was joined by Kate Stephens of Smart Works and museum curator Donna Loveday with special guest the one-to-watch engineer Morwenna Wilson. We had great fun, food and lapped up the fashion theme.

April saw another wonderful evening at the Royal College of Music including classical scores and a fun piece entitled ‘Kitchen’ created on an iPad with percussion instruments and mimed by 4th year RCM student Louise Goodwin.

At the Pilgrims Way Artists’ exhibition in May I was lucky enough to meet Dr Ian Collins, author of artist John Craxton’s monograph. Dr Collins, who is also curator of the John Craxton exhibition at Dorset County Museum, gave a fascinating talk on the 20th century

artist and I was interested to learn that Sir David Attenborough is a keen collector of Craxton’s work.

David Foster and I met HRH Prince Charles at the RCM President’s Day where opera singer Dame Kiri te Kanawa and pianist/conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy were presented with Honorary Doctorates. I have been attending so many events at the RCM that it feels like a second home!

One of my summer highlights was the charity bike ride where a small Lark team cycled from north to south Devon - up and down every hill you could imagine. It proved you don’t know what you are capable of until you try and I certainly tried and achieved. It was wonderful spending time together, laughing, crying, eating chips and not feeling guilty as we were burning around 2500 calories a day! We have raised nearly £20,000 for the three charities Hospices UK, Macmillan Cancer Support and the Not Forgotten Association (NFA).

The NFA kindly invited the Lark team to a Buckingham Palace garden party on a gloriously sunny day in June – yet another memorable occasion.

Further, it has been a privilege to see the Endellion String Quartet and attend other music events as well enjoying art exhibition previews from Goya at the Courtauld; Wellington at the National Portrait Gallery and Barbara Hepworth at Tate Britain while rubbing shoulders with the experts. It’s so much better to go early before the crowds and 20th century art will feature in our next publication of LARKlife.

Winning a Maserati for a weekend as a raffle prize made the drive to a family wedding such fun - thanks to the nice folks at Lancaster in Colchester for their generosity.

Vroom!

Julie

Lark hosts: Women Fashion Power event at

The Design Museum

See the blog at www.larkinsurance.co.uk/private-clients/lark-ascending or follow me on Twitter @juliewebblark

@lark_MI

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Larklife issue 2 'Passion & Fashion'

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Transcript of Larklife issue 2 'Passion & Fashion'